Since copper mines closed in the 1970s, artists and retirees have settled in Bisbee, Ariz., about 80 miles southeast of Tucson and 5 miles from the Mexican border. / Doug Hocking

by Lindsey Collom, The Arizona Republic

by Lindsey Collom, The Arizona Republic

PHOENIX - Arizona's attorney general withdrew his threat Monday to sue the small city of Bisbee, Ariz., after its lawyers agreed to rewrite a controversial ordinance recognizing same-sex couples to remove rights that he said were reserved for married couples under state law.

Bisbee, a former mining town about 5 miles from the Mexican border that has become a haven for artists and retirees, still will grant same-sex couples official recognition under the agreement, but its civil-union ordinance will not be as groundbreaking as first envisioned.

Three state lawmakers, Attorney General Tom Horne and a conservative advocacy group had said they would sue the city over the ordinance, and The Center for Arizona Policy had said such an effort would bankrupt the 5,600-resident city about 185 miles southwest of Phoenix.

The new language in the ordinance, which the Attorney General's Office will help oversee, could provide a blueprint for other Arizona cities to confer some legal status on same-sex partnerships.

The City Council in the Phoenix suburb of Tempe, population 165,000, had sought legal clarification on civil unions following Bisbee's historic vote earlier this month. Other municipal attorneys who sat in on the meeting with Horne, including representatives from Phoenix suburb Peoria, population 157,000; and Tucson suburb Marana, 35,000, said their municipalities had no immediate plans to follow suit.

"There's some details to be worked out, but on principle, we reached complete agreement," Horne said. "Getting 12 lawyers in the room, getting emotions out of it and dealing with what people really need to see happen, we were able to find that we were in agreement, and I think that's a very good result."

Bisbee City Council passed the ordinance April 2. It would have allowed the city clerk to issue civil-union certificates, making it the first city in the state to legally recognize same-sex partnerships. Horne argued that the ordinance appeared to confer to gay couples the benefits and responsibilities afforded to married couples under Arizona law.

Since 1996, Arizona law has defined marriage as between one man and one woman. In 2008, voters approved adding the limited definition of marriage to the state Constitution. It says that "only a union of one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in this state."

Bisbee's ordinance was intended to grant rights only in areas that the city controlled, but it also said couples in a civil union would be considered "spouses" and mentioned legal rights in areas typically outside a city's jurisdiction such as property, inheritance, adoption and guardianship. In a letter Horne sent to the city after its council vote, he said he believed that the city attempted to go beyond what it can legally do.

"We were concerned if the ordinance were to be enacted as written, it would be misleading," Horne said. "People can inherit by wills, and people can enter into contracts with each other, which are binding under current law. Our fear was that people would refrain from doing that, thinking they were covered by civil unions."

He wanted the ordinance to be clear that a civil-union contract could not confer rights covered in state law. Bisbee officials have said they intend to vote again and put the new version of the ordinance into effect later this summer. The original ordinance would have become effective in May.

Lawyers for Lambda Legal, a national legal organization that fights for civil rights for the gay community and is providing technical advice to city officials, said they also have suggested that Bisbee remove any future confusion over the same-sex ordinance by replacing the phrase "civil union" with something like "registered partnership" or "family partnership."

"There's no dispute that the goal here is to have an ordinance that takes some new, creative steps to provide recognition for families in Bisbee and to provide some additional protections that the city has the ability to provide, perhaps in some new ways by allowing a public record for agreements that couples can make and official designations that any individual can make," said Jennifer Pizer, law and policy project director for Lambda Legal. "These can be practical tools for families, and I think none of that is controversial."

Pizer said unmarried couples can have good intentions of making arrangements to provide for children and each other but often don't follow through, sometimes with devastating effects. Pizer represented same-sex partners and children of 9/11 victims and worked to win financial compensation with mixed results.

"The city of Bisbee has recognized they can help by having an ordinance that identifies the types of agreements that are useful to have and creating a way to make a public record of the fact that a couple has done that," Pizer said.